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UNDISPUTED FACTS. Concerned about leaks of classified Government information to newspapers, especially the Pentagon papers, Nixon in June 1971 created a White House group called the Special Investigations Unit, also known as the plumbers. It was supervised by John Ehrlichman, directed by Egil Krogh and included David Young, E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy. Its activities included tapping the phones of officials and newsmen suspected of handling leaked information; burglarizing the office of a psychiatrist consulted by Pentagon Papers Defendant Daniel Ellsberg; investigating Senator Edward Kennedy's Chappaquiddick accident; covertly spiriting ITT Lobbyist Dita Beard out of Washington; and fabricating a State Department cable linking the Kennedy Administration with the assassination of South Viet Nam's President Diem. Two of the plumbers, Liddy and Hunt, later were convicted of wiretapping and burglary at the Watergate.
IN DISPUTE. The President's May 22 statement denied that the plumbers were assigned to do anything illegal. It said that their duties were strictly in the field of national security and, beyond plugging leaks, they were to compile "an accurate record of events related to the Viet Nam War." Ehrlichman portrayed the plumbers' main purpose as to "stimulate various agencies and departments" in controlling leaks. He rejected suggestions by Senators that the plumbers resembled a secret-police group or that their activity was primarily political.
WEIGHT OF EVIDENCE. The plumber operations described by Mitchell as "White House horrors," especially the fake Viet Nam cable, the Dita Beard foray, and the Chappaquiddick probe, did not at all fit the Nixon or Ehrlichman descriptions of the plumbers' role. These acts were highly political and had nothing to do with national security.
WHAT DID NIXON KNOW? No witness admitted discussing with Nixon any of these plumber activities except for the burglary of Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office. Yet Nixon created the plumbers to deal with a threat "so grave as to require extraordinary actions," and he described their work as "highly sensitive." There is a strong possibility that he kept informed of all plumber activities. If he did not, he should have.
The Ellsberg Burglary
UNDISPUTED FACTS. Nixon on May 22 said he ordered the plumbers to examine Ellsberg's "associates and his motives" because no one knew "what additional national secrets Mr. Ellsberg might disclose." Directed by Plumbers Hunt and Liddy, a team of burglars paid by the White House broke into the Los Angeles office of Dr. Lewis Fielding in September 1971, in a search for Ellsberg's psychiatric records. (White House Aides Krogh and Young were aware of this burglary in advance.)